Introducing: Halflives

Italian rockers Halflives are a great example of the power of fans and their role in helping bands achieve success through the medium of crowdsourcing in this modern, digital age.

Despite having only been together as a band for six months – having been part of a previous project beforehand – the band decided to ask fans to help fund their debut album and absolutely smashed their original target by 200%.

The five-piece of lead vocalist Linda Battilani, Enrico Bertoni (guitar and vocals), Matt Mantovani (guitar), Oscar Scantamburlo (bass) and Fede Bernardi (drums), who hail from Modena in northern Italy, are set to release said album Empty Rooms next month. So we caught up with them to find out what we can expect from the band – starting with those crowdsourcing results.

They told us: “Seeing this incredible result makes us feel very special and very supported by the people who follow us. It’s been an unexpected surprise to reach almost twice our original target and we are really happy it turned out this way. It revealed that we have a wider fan base than we thought we had and it shows that it’s actually the most important thing for a band because without it you can go nowhere.

“The support our fans gave us and keep on giving us means the world to us. Nowadays, if you manage to build a solid and devoted fan base, you can actually survive without a label since online platforms make it possible for a band to distribute its music itself. That’s the road we’re currently going down!”

And when it comes to the music, it’s easy to see why so many fans across Europe have jumped on board the Halflives bandwagon. The two singles released give us a great flavour for the band’s sound – which is best described as female-fronted new-era Bring Me The Horizon. Battilani’s huge vocals have the power to make the hairs stand up on your arms and are wonderfully supported by some in your face guitars

Describing their music, singer/songwriter Linda told us: “I like to space between different areas and not fix on one single genre, which I find counter-productive in the matter of songwriting. I’ve also been trained a lot by our producer in opening my mind to many genres. There are bands I’ve listened to since forever like 30 Seconds to Mars and some recent discoveries like Halsey – both are artists and sounds that are part of my everyday life and somehow leave pieces of themselves in my songwriting.

“Our sound bridges pop and alternative, with a definite rock base. We make a point to make catchy and accessible songs, to make it possible to get into our music immediately. We like to have people singing with us at the show so we work on writing effective choruses in melodic and deep songs.”

This point re writing catchy songs is absolutely the case as referenced by both Burn and Mayday, which will both appear on the debut album, are instantly catchy singalong tracks that will have you begging for more. Check out the excellent Burn in the video below:

In terms of what we can expect from the album, the band said: “We wanted this album to be the very best of us, so we decided on purpose to make it an 8-track album with the best songs we wrote over these last 18 months. We know it’s an usual format but fans can expect deep tracks with a strong message. We have been merciless during the writing process and we sacrificed all the demos that were not good enough to be featured on this album according to us. Expect the core of our half lives.”

Empty Rooms will be released on April 14th, followed by a promotional tour across Europe, which includes a UK leg with Courage My Love through May and June.

The band also tells us: “We’re also planning another UK tour later this year (UK we love you!). We just shot a new music video in a French castle that will come out just before the release of the album. A lot more is yet to come and we can’t wait to share it all and see what people feel about it.”

We’re also looking forward to it and think Halflives could be one of the most exciting bands to keep an eye on this year.